I had a bed of 12 broccoli, and all of them are doing great except for these two. When the leaves first started turning purple I assumed that it was a phosphorus deficiency (heavy feeder right there last season) , and so I added a little bit of rock phosphate top dressing. Just pulled the plants because they are so far behind that I figured there was no way they were going to catch up and I need to put something else there eventually. And the roots have been decimated. My guess are cutworm or symphylans, but I thought extension might be able to talk more by looking at the damage. I did see a lot of centipedes when I pulled up my dead physalis root from last season, but I'm hesitant to turn the soil unless I have to, as I do no dig/no till.

In case it matters, last year there was a Peruvian ground cherry growing right there, it had extensive fruit damage from some kind of moth/worm. Also I amended the bed over winter with both rabbit manure/bedding and leaf litter compost. The bed has been under insect netting for two months, as long as the broccoli plants have been there.